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Royal Bank of Canada to Repurchase up to 30 Million of its Common Shares

TORONTO, Oct. 12, 2012 /CNW/ - Royal Bank of Canada (TSX: RY) (NYSE: RY)
today announced its intention, subject to the approval of the Office of
the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) and the Toronto
Stock Exchange, to commence a normal course issuer bid through the
facilities of the Toronto Stock Exchange and to repurchase for
cancellation up to 30 million of its common shares, representing
approximately 2.1 per cent of the bank's outstanding common shares as
at September 28, 2012. On September 28, 2012, there were 1,444,700,692
common shares outstanding. The bank intends to file a notice of
intention with the Toronto Stock Exchange in this regard.

Purchases may commence on November 1, 2012, provided the Toronto Stock
Exchange has accepted the notice of intention, and may continue until
October 31, 2013. The amount and timing of any purchases will be
determined by the bank, except that the amount of purchases on any
given day will not exceed 634,500 common shares, which is 25 per cent
of the average daily trading volume on the Toronto Stock Exchange for
the six-months ending September 28, 2012. Purchases under the bid will
be made exclusively on the Toronto Stock Exchange and in accordance
with the applicable Canadian and United States securities laws. The
price paid for any repurchased shares will be the market price of such
shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange at the time of acquisition.

The proposed share repurchases will enable the bank to balance the
imperatives of maintaining strong capital ratios with the ongoing need
to generate shareholder value. On July 31, 2012, the bank's Tier 1 and
Total capital ratios were 13.0 per cent and 15.0 per cent,
respectively.

Caution regarding forward-looking statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may be deemed to be
forward-looking statements within the meaning of certain securities
laws, including the "safe harbour" provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and any applicable Canadian securities legislation. These
forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements
with respect to the proposed normal course issuer bid by Royal Bank of
Canada. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words
such as "believe", "expect", "foresee", "forecast", "anticipate",
"intend", "estimate", "goal", "plan" and "project" and similar
expressions of future or conditional verbs such as "will", "may",
"should", "could" or "would".

By their very nature, forward-looking statements require us to make
assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties, which
give rise to the possibility that our predictions, forecasts,
projections, expectations or conclusions will not prove to be accurate,
that our assumptions may not be correct and that our forward-looking
statements, including statements about the proposed normal course
issuer bid by Royal Bank of Canada, will not be achieved. We caution
readers not to place undue reliance on these statements as a number of
risk factors could cause our actual results to differ materially from
the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements. These
factors - many of which are beyond our control and the effects of which
can be difficult to predict - include: credit, market, operational, and
liquidity and funding risks, and other risks discussed in the Risk
management section of our 2011 Annual Report and in our Q3 2012 Report
to Shareholders; general business, economic and financial market
conditions in Canada, the United States and certain other countries in
which we conduct business, including the effects of the European
sovereign debt crisis, changes in accounting standards, policies and
estimates; the effects of changes in government fiscal, monetary,
economic and other policies; changes to and new interpretations of
risk-based capital and liquidity guidelines; the impact of changes in
laws and regulations; judicial or regulatory judgments and legal
proceedings; and our ability to successfully execute our strategies.

We caution that the foregoing list of risk factors is not exhaustive and
other factors could also adversely affect our results. When relying on
our forward-looking statements to make decisions with respect to us,
investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors
and other uncertainties and potential events. Additional information
about these and other factors can be found in the Risk management and
Overview of other risks sections of our 2011 Annual Report and in the
Risk management section of our Q3 2012 Report to Shareholders. Except
as required by law, we do not undertake to update any forward-looking
statement contained in this press release.